Big Picture Big Sound

The Pain in Spain

I've said it before. To be a life-long Woody Allen fan you have to be something of a masochist. The writer-director has relentlessly, stubbornly, unthinkably churned out a movie a year for over three decades. To see them all (and yes, I have - even 2003's "Anything Else"), you have to take the good with the bad. Of late - particularly in the post-scandal years - there've been more bad than good. But once in a while, every so often, the Woodman can still churn out a gem. The last great Allen movie was 2005's "Match Point", before that you'd have to look back to 1999's underappreciated "Sweet and Lowdown". Two good movies six years apart is nothing to sneeze at...unless of course you've watched the five others that came in between.

"Match Point" was the first in what would become a string of what used to be considered unthinkable: non-Manhattan-based Woody Allen movies. While "Match" brought the darkly cynical side of Mr. Allen into sharp focus, his two England-based follow-ups ("Scoop", "Cassandra's Dream") floundered. With "Vicky Cristina Barcelona", Mr. Allen shifts locations again, this time to the titular Spanish city. And the result is his most effortless and insightful comedy in years.

Indeed, you'd have to go back to his 1979 masterpiece "Manhattan" to find a comparative Woody Allen film - not in terms of quality, but to find a movie that is so clearly a love letter to a city. Something about Barcelona - the architecture, the people, the food and wine - brought to life a quality that's been dormant in Mr. Allen's films quite possibly since 1996, when he tried his hand at the musical genre with "Everyone Says I Love You". Where London left him cynical, Barcelona appears to have awakened the writer-director's inner romantic.

The film has the whimsical feel of a bedtime story (thanks to a no-nonsense narration by Christopher Evan Welch). The two woman of the title, for various reasons, are summering in Barcelona. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is the straight-laced control-freak and the character most likely to be Mr. Allen's mouthpiece (she says things like "turgid categorical imperative"). She's also engaged to be married to a man who's so dull that the film's volume fades out while he's telling a joke. Cristina, on the other hand, is the wild-child - an aspiring artist looking to find inspiration. She's played by Scarlett Johansson in her third Woody Allen movie and her best, most natural performance since 2003's "Lost in Translation".

One night at dinner, the women are approached by José Antonio (Javier Bardem). Within minutes, he invites them to his hometown for a weekend of sightseeing and love-making (yes, in that order). José Antonio has a gift for directness. But what should seem sleazy and off-putting becomes unquestionably enticing thanks to Mr. Bardem, who plays the role with an air of effortlessness in a selection of linen shirts. His José Antonio is every bit as charming as his killer from "No Country For Old Men" was menacing. His straightforwardness, in fact, becomes admirable.

For a time, "Barcelona" plays like Mr. Allen's 1982 trifle "A Midsummer Night's Sex Comedy", all lightness and flirtation. Until, that is, Penélope Cruz shows up as Maria Elena, José Antonio's suicidal ex-wife. Like a hurricane, Ms. Cruz stirs these characters into an unpredictable whirlwind which deepens the relationships as well as the film's themes. It's best to leave the specifics to be discovered, since the film's charm, as is true with so many things, is in the journey.

Much has already been made of Ms. Cruz' excellent work as Maria Elena, but you'd be hard-pressed to find a bad performance in the film. Each actor, particularly Mr. Bardem, reaches a level of naturalism that makes nearly every other performance you've seen this summer seem "Method". And that's important, since "Barcelona" is essentially a fable, a fantasy (especially when a threesome comes into play). All the characters are impossibly pretty, dress well, drive great cars, eat and drink great food and otherwise live the way Woody Allen characters always live. But more than that, what Mr. Allen does here is capture that feeling of being swept away by a country - by a culture that appears to be nothing but artists and bohemians - by that desire to leave America behind and call yourself an "ex-pat".

Yes, it's Woody Allen at his most romantic. Mr. Allen appears to be in love with love, but sadly he also seems to resent it. And if the film can be condemned for one thing, it's the one-sidedness of his argument. The final shot of the film is such a downer that it can only be funny. Does Woody really hate marriage this much? Perhaps it's best not to ask. But if he's going to spend 90 minutes crafting his best comic fable in years, is it too much to ask for everyone to live happily ever after?